David B. Allison received his Ph.D. from Hofstra University in 1990. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a second post-doctoral fellowship at the NIH-funded New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center. He was a research scientist at the NY Obesity Research Center and Associate Professor of Medical Psychology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons until 2001.

In 2001, he joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he is currently Distinguished Professor, Quetelet Endowed Professor of Public Health, Associate Dean for Science, Director of Office of Energetics, and Director of the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC). He has authored over 500 scientific publications and edited five books. He has won several awards, including the 2002 Lilly Scientific Achievement Award from The Obesity Society (TOS), the 2002 Andre Mayer Award from the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO), and the National Science Foundation Administered 2006 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). In 2009, he was awarded the Centrum Award from the American Society of Nutrition (ASN) and the TOPS research achievement award from the Obesity Society. In 2013, he was awarded the Alabama Academy of Science's "Wright A. Gardner" award and the American Society of Nutrition's (ASN) "Dannon Institute Mentorship" award. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) in 2007, the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2009, the NY Academy of Medicine in 2014, the Gerontological Society of America in 2014, and inducted into the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in 2013. He holds several NIH grants, including one of the Common Fund's NIH Director's Transformative Research Award (TR01) entitled "Energetics, Disparities, & Lifespan A unified hypothesis".

He has been a member of the Board of Trustees for the International Life Science Institute (ILSI), North America, since 2002 and served as Chairman of the Board from 2012 to 2015. In 2012 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) and on the board-appointed Committee on Science and Technology Engagement with the Public (CoSTEP) for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2014 – 2017.

Cope, M. B. & Allison, D. B. (2010). White Hat Bias: Examples of its Presence in Obesity Research and a Call for Renewed Commitment to Faithfulness in Research Reporting. International Journal of Obesity. 34(1):84-8. [PMID: 19949416]

Allison, D. B., Paultre, F., Pi-Sunyer, F. X., & Heymsfield, S. B. (1995). Is The Intra-Uterine Period Really A Critical Period For The Development of Obesity? International Journal of Obesity, 19, 397-402. [PMID: 7550524]

Allison, D. B., Heshka, S., & Heymsfield, S. (1993). Evidence for a major gene with pleiotropic effects for a Cardiovascular Disease Risk Syndrome in children under 14. American Journal of Diseases in Childhood, Special Issue on Genetics, 147, 1298-1302. [PMID: 8249948]